First pet and how it died - another hamster memory

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.

Another hamster related memory for you. It seems that these were popular wee pets for kids, and still are, as this memory comes from a mother and the story of her kids first hamster. Again, another memory which lit up the face of the person telling me it. A combination of remembering the event, the horror and the lesson learned. There was a little laughter too...but only a little!

Kylie

“It only happened a couple of years ago actually. I’d never had pets as a kid and it was only when I had kids of my own that I had a pet to look after.

We got the kids a hamster. Nice furry thing called Kylie. Kylie the hamster!

Kylie turned out to be pregnant. Not something we'd planned for of course. She had five babies in all. Of course the kids wanted to keep them and we felt we couldn’t really say no.

They were tiny things – all "skin" and pink. Kylie looked after them well really, making sure they were warm in their bed and giving them milk. The kids were looking after them too – making sure the bedding was clean and playing with “Mummy”.

I was doing the usual bits of housework, dusting, hoovering, tidying, you know? Anyway, I was in the kids bedroom hoovering when I noticed Kylie’s cage door was open on the floor. The kids had been cleaning her cage out earlier and couldn't have closed the door latch properly.

The babies were still in the cage and so was Kylie. But I looked again when I was picking the cage up to put it on the dresser. One was missing. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I hunted all over, picking up everything on the floor and looking underneath.

I couldn’t find it. When the kids came home we had to explain that one of the babies was missing. They were convinced it was “Jason” but who could tell – they all looked the same. It made it more personal though! It was quite sad and a bit of a mystery.

The kids were a lot more careful after that with the cage door. We still have Frank, Alice, Homer, Marge and “Mum” Kylie.

I should say that we did find Jason. Well my husband Paul did actually. Its not a nice thought and definitely not a nice way to die. He’d gone up the hoover! He was too small to even clog up the hose! We found out when we emptied the hoover bag. Paul had hoovered up a necklace one of the kids had left on the floor after playing dressing up and was fishing in the bag to get it. That’s when he saw him. It must only have been two days later. I really hope he didn’t suffer – if the shock didn’t kill him he would have lost it in amongst all the dust in the bag.

I never did tell the kids. For a while they believed he’d run away into the skirting boards and was living in the walls. The youngest got a bit scared of that though and would have dreams that he’d grow big and fat, with huge teeth that would bite her in her sleep. We had to tell her a white lie after that to stop the dreams – Jason had gone to heaven and the reason we knew that was there was a new star in the sky over our house!